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More of Red Tears
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By Saleh (Gadi) Johar - Jul 02,
2009 |
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I would like to note that I have heard good things about Shaleqa Dawit Wolde Giorgis1; many people characterize him as intelligent and human. I read Dawit's two books, 'Red Tears' and 'Kihidet Bedem Meret.' I spoke to him on the phone twice, briefly, and I can confirm that I sensed humility and intelligence in his tone. Of Dawit’s tenure in Eritrea of the eighties, it is said that he saved many lives, that he installed a few pressure valves to control his regime’s brutality. I am sure all those he saved are grateful, and he deserves credit for being a rare embodiment of compassion within the ranks of the otherwise monstrous Derg regime. Shaleqa Dawit’s “task
was to pacify the rebellion and stop people from supporting the EPLF,”
and his niceties were aimed to serve that goal, they were not independent
from it. Still, charity is noble and his benevolent acts cannot be denied.
But what also cannot be denied is the fact that Dawit represented one of the
most repressive regimes in Africa—he was simply a benevolent dictator by
extension.
His goal was
realized when, “young people stopped joining the rebels and many started
deserting from the EPLF.” For that, Eritreans would not consider him a
friend, but a smart enemy, and his recent article, The way forward for Ethiopia and Eritrea,
proves it in spades.
I hope that Dawit,
the enlightened person that he is, will take this article as an intellectual
provocation or challenge—it is not meant to be accusatory though it may sound
such since that is the only was it can be presented. It is an attempt to
shake some sense and persuade typical Abyssinian politicians and
intellectuals to see beyond their narrow social, ethnic and geographical
enclaves. It is a protest not against Dawit per se, but the elite culture and
attitude that produced him. It is a protest against the elite attitude that
considers Ethiopia a Christian nation in eternal war with Islam; a protest
against the attitude that Eritrea is made of a Christian highland with a
Muslim lowland appendage; a protest against the habit of constantly
re-writing and revising the history of Eritrea and Ethiopia to fit this
narrative; a protest against the attitude that prescribes Ethiopian elite
interest-driven alliances, always at the expense of others, and thus sowing
the seeds for the next war.
A Sample of An
Exclusionary Attitude Shaleqa Dawit
asserts that when it comes to Eritrea and Ethiopia, “[our] genes, our
culture, language and history are identical.” Then he goes on to tell
Eritrean and Ethiopians to meet and talk in “…the streets, the
restaurants, the clubs, churches and various forums in Ethiopia, Eritrea,
America, USA and Africa.”
The above quotes
may appear faultless to the uninitiated, but for those who were on the
receiving end, for centuries, since the 14 century, they are a typical
manifestation of the Abyssinian elite’s psyche—I don’t expect Dawit to
entertain the idea of talking to people in mosques—they should not be
included in any type of dialogue, the Abyssinian elite would do it for them
as they have done for centuries. And if Dawit would violate the mental
restraint that he has, breaking free of the Abyssinian chauvinism, he would
see the light, or the pitch darkness that has been the cause of all miseries
in the region.
To a non Christian
(an Ethiopian or Eritrean Muslim), as well as to a progressive Ethiopian and
Eritrean Christian, nothing can be as offending as the Abyssinian elite’s
self-centered analysis of the social, historical and political issues of
our region. Dawit’s thinking is representative of the typical Ethiopian
member of the elite (and nobility in the old days); he states that “the
history of Ethiopia has been about winners and leaders,” and contradicts
it by adding, “Internal conflicts in Ethiopia have always been about power
and not ethnicity.” But a confused person, non-elite, would ask: Which
one is it, winners and leaders or power and ethnicity?
Until Dawit makes
up his mind, I am claiming that to the marginalized people of the region, the
history of Ethiopia has been a continuous saga about oppression, savagery,
aggression, violence and subjugation—and bigotry. When Ethiopian kings
invaded Muslim lands, it is always “the king asserted his control over the
Muslims.” Muslims are never referred to as Ethiopian Muslims, they are
just Muslims. The situation of the Oromo was even worse, people who
were considered and treated as Slaves by the Abyssinian elite for centuries.
For details of such historical fallacies, look at most of the Ethiopian
history textbooks, especially the history of the Eastern parts of Ethiopia,
with Harrer at the center. I think 1400 years is long enough for the elite to
decide, whether to consider Ethiopian Muslims equal citizens or illegal
aliens. I was once talking
to an elderly and respectable Amhara neighbor. In the course of our
conversation, I mentioned a friend and tried to describe him to my neighbor.
I told him that my friend grew up in Addis Ababa and that he is Amhara, and
that his name is Omer. My neighbor wrinkled his forehead and snapped his head
up in surprise: someone with a name like Omer cannot be an Amhara; he is a
Muslim!
I don’t want to
bore you with that surprise lesson I learned from my neighbor. It was easy to
remember Haile Sellassie (and his predecessor’s) policy of building a nation
state: an Ethiopia centered on the Amhara nationality and the Orthodox
religion. The rest, if they were not willing to assimilate and shade off
their identities, would practically be relegated to second-class citizens, if
not worse. Following the
contemporary mantra, (though this scare tactic has always been the central
theme of Haile Sellasie and Derg), Dawit warns “Arab Chauvinism
(expansionism) and Islamic Fundamentalism have always been real threats to
Ethiopia, and Eritrea can possibly turn out to be the main conduit.” He
stops short of suggesting a final solution: eradicate any Muslim from the
region. Maybe that could be the solution the chauvinists could not accomplish
over the centuries.
Under this pretext,
Muslims have been victimized for millennia, since the 14th century
when power was usurped by the reemergence of the violent claimants to the
Solomonic empire that disrupted the traditional religious harmony among
Abyssinian Muslims and Christians. That empire planted bigotry everywhere,
including present day Eritrea, and destroyed the enlightened and progressive
legacy of the great Axumite Empire. The Atzies never learned to develop their
country, but became crusaders and tools of Portuguese extremists. Driven by
the fable of Prestor John, they went out of their way to victimize their
Muslim compatriots—it is they who first invented the draconian anti Muslim
policies that victimized so many people, their modern versions are just
copycats.
After creating the
Muslim boogeyman, the Abyssinians climbed back to their mountains and the
world left them behind and advanced while they immersed themselves back in
their favorite pastime, Zemecha, inter-fighting, invading and looting
innocent villagers. One has to be brave enough to admit those facts and not
represent them as a golden era; Ethiopia has nothing to show for the
centuries of rule under its elect-of-god kings. If they do, there is nothing
indigenous or authentic in it. The country is still living off a rich legacy,
leftovers from the glorious and enlightened Axumite Kingdom of the past—even
the fables and the culturally paralyzing fables are
a creation of the usurpers who claimed decent from the Axumite rulers, not
the original Axumites. . I
always wished that the Ethiopian elite would stop addressing their
compatriot’s raw nerves to arouse Ethiopian nationalism; history testifies
that expansionist wars are fed by the arousal of raw nerves. One would think
that enough blood was spilled, everyone’s blood to satisfy the elites’
demons, and contemplating on that, the elite should have been more inclusive,
less expansionist and less self-centered.
There
is always an excluded Eritrea (and an excluded Ethiopia) in the elite’s
messages that don’t recognize anyone but its own social group; and when they
talk about Eritrea, they are locked in what they consider their Orthodox Christian
extension while crying Red Sea, Assab. That has been their problem and still
is. And I don’t think I need to reiterate that democracy is NOT a key to all
those ailments. That has been the core of the issue, which no one seems to
want to tackle. As long
as the elite keeps defining Ethiopianism as a church based, exclusive club of
Abyssinians, they are bound to lose their own Ethiopian Muslims and others
who are relegated to the peripheries. They need to worry about that first
before thinking of getting Eritreans to the fold of a nation that has always
oppressed them and considered them second-class citizens in their own
country.
Who
Represents Eritrea In
what seems a call for part two of Red Tears, Dawit advises his compatriots “not
relating with the Eritrean government is a misguided position.” That
is certainly not a call for befriending the Eritrean people; Dawit has
countersigned the right to decide on behalf of Eritreans to the Isaias
regime. There could not be more disrespectful affront to Eritreans, who are
suffering under the yoke of the Isaias regime, than that. The wise would
better be aware that nothing brought about by Isaias would hold for long, it
would be a game played with fire. Dawit knows that Isaias and his regime do
not represent Eritreans—he leads a minority regime. History
By Omission Describing
the mood on the day Haile Sellasie showed his disregard for agreements and
protocols and his lawlessness when he violated the Federal Arrangement with
Eritrea, Dawit admits he was “on security mission watching the Eritrean
Assembly when they were voting. It was unanimous vote.” He also explains
that “The Eritrean elites were the first to express their joy.” Here,
Dawit’s presence in the assembly while it was in a critical voting session is
not significant, what is worth noting is the reason for his presence, and in
what capacity. It is obvious he was not a parliamentarian. He was not
distributing roses or blowing butterflies either; he and his troops were
there to intimidate and coerce those who would dare vote against the will and
imposition of Haile Sellassie. The fact that there was, “a competition
within the Eritrean elites to send telegrams and messages to Emperor Haile
Sellassie expressing their joy and congratulating him” doesn’t say anything—people
might recant their faith, accuse others wrongly, or admit to crimes they
never committed when a gun is pointed at them.
True,
there were those who wanted to land in Haile Sellassie’s lap since decades
earlier; and they were empowered (while others were threatened) by the
presence of M14 clad troops under the command of officer Dawit; troops who
were there on a mission. Dawit was there; and I was there like Dawit; but
only through the person of the much respected parliamentarian of the time, the
late Gengazmatch Hussein Kaffil whom I once heard recalling that
congratulations among the Unionists was well underway days before the voting
started, well before Dawit’s troops cocked their guns and marched to the
assembly building. Dawit
also claims to know the motives of the independentists; he explains how the
voting drama in the Eritrean assembly ended: “Some disgruntled
elements that felt excluded from the new dispensation and therefore expressed
dissatisfaction for personal reasons — the loss of power and influence. I was
there celebrating with the Eritreans the long awaited unity of Eritrea with the mother land. It was an unforgettable moment.” Indeed
it must have been designed to be unforgettable; and it is unforgettable—I was
born in it, grew up in it and I am still suffering from its repercussions. I
was there and so were many of my generation that was consumed and driven to
carry the burden of sacrifice because of that sad day in our history. That
sad day of betrayal, conspiracy and lawlessness. That day when the seed of
our modest democracy was crushed and replaced by an archaic, bigoted and
repressive feudal regime of Haile Sellasie—isn’t that the day that the
Ethiopian elite in collaboration with the Eritrean elite killed democracy?
Doesn’t Dawit see the irony in screaming democracy fifty years after
witnessing the massacre of democracy in Asmara? Isn’t it ironic that he
considers us so naïve that he condescendingly tries to sell us democracy
after the almost cultish indulgence of sacrificing democracy, for the benefit
of the elect-of-god, over which he and his troops stood guard? What did the
poor Ethiopian or Eritrean get out of that but decades of misery? Who is
responsible? My
generation grew up believing that the Amhara are the cause of all our
miseries; and I grew up in a town called Keren hearing and witnessing Amharic
speaking Tor Serawit abusing the people. It was unlike what Dawit detailed in
his article while placing himself in a position of an observer though he was
in the middle (and wrong side) of it. He was a Tor Serawit officer in the
Eritrea of the late fifties and early sixties. Remember I said I was there? I
was on the opposite side of Dawit, a victim of his troops, a child who grew
up being pushed and harassed by Dawit’s troops throughout the sixties and
early seventies. I am even scared imaging saying what I am writing now in
front of a Tor Serawit officer in Keren! Me, my
family and the whole neighborhood would have disappeared. Thanks to God that
didn’t happen.
A few
years after Dawit stood with his “troops at the door step of the police
headquarters,” I was clinging to my father’s legs when soldiers from the “2nd
infantry division” who were probably trained by Dawit, came and gun-butted my
father and drove him to jail, he was an ELF supporter. I was there when the
Ethiopian soldiers forcefully exposed me to corpses: they used to hang
mutilated and bloated bodies of killed Eritrean combatants in the
marketplace. I witnessed that countless times. I was there during the massacre
of Ona when hundreds of villagers were massacred and the village burned by
Ethiopian soldiers. I was there, overlooking the town of Agordat from the top
of a distant high ground beyond the Barka River, when Ethiopian soldiers
mowed hundreds of innocent civilians, indiscriminately, in broad daylight. My
generation has stories that would fill volumes of what it witnessed: we were
there as well. I can “forgive, but never forget.” It is also important to
note that a story recounted by a victim of Auschwitz would never agree with
the version told by Gobbles, for example.
Yes,
I grew up. I matured. And grew up more; only then could I discover that an
Amhara peasant in the outskirts of Gonder or an Amhara shepherd in Menze
never oppressed me; it was the elite who used the Amhara nationality (of the
poor souls as a vehicle) that were the culprits. The elite wreaked havoc
throughout the country. The elite that never seems to learn breaking the
walls of denial that it built around itself. Dawit
fails in his history writing, but calls for more biased revisions: “Our
genuine historians had to dig a lot to bring the truth out and popularize
it.” The genuine historians have been turning out the usual “truths”
since the Kebre Negest was authored; and it is open knowledge what
type of truth are included therein: chauvinistic, deceiving and self-serving
bundles of lies and myths.
One
can write volumes about the narrow, feudal Abyssinia centered history;
Eritreans have been subjected to that for too long. But now, the zeal for
standing up to injustices is alive, the oppressed are struggling for their
rights. The spirit is different. No one will take it with folded hands.
Who
Is Marginalized By Whom? As
long as the members of the Abyssinian elite do not divorce their chauvinism
and change their attitude, as long as they insists on keeping the peripheral
people subservient to their egos, as long as they do not recognize that the
marginalized are citizens with equal rights, they are doomed—and the country
that they claim to love so much, is doomed. They should realize that the
numerical fact of the marginalized alone does not justify their exclusion.
And Dawit accuses the “Weyane” as the “elite people from Adwa, Axum and
Shire.” Commenting
on strictly Ethiopian affairs is something I try to avoid; but Dawit leaves
me no choice and I deserve to be excused. Since Dawit traveled the “width and
breadth of Eritrea,” he would have served the reader honestly if he described
the origins of Isaias and his clique as well. He should have completed the
tapestry instead of leaving it a half done image. He didn’t though he knows.
He chose to feed his readers select political, agitational messages. Going
all the way, it would have been nice of him if he described the ethnic and
religious composition of the Ethiopian opposition, those whom he is pushing
to bond with Isaias. He didn’t.
The
issue has become similar to a neglected picture frame that has been hanging
on a wall for too long. It is so present, so part of the wall that after a
time one forgets its existence. In other words, it is taken for granted and
you don’t check if it is there every time you return to your house, as
frequently as you would check your valuables. But the picture frame that you
do not notice is clearly visible to the rest of the people—Dawit has not
freed himself from the ancient Abyssinian goal of hegemony and forging
dubious destructive alliances. Why would someone call for an association with
the Isaias regime? Another cycle of destructive war?
The
same elite have already committed enough destruction for centuries. But the
next time around, the elite should remember that there are other social
forces around; if they keep ignoring that fact, I foresee a terribly rude
awakening. I would
dare say that under the current government, the lots of the Oromos, Tigray,
Somalis and Afars (and generally Muslims) and other marginalized people have
improved many folds relative to their historic situation under successive
feudal Ethiopian regimes—some were being enslaved until recent history. As
for Eritreans, to me, the fact that the EPRDF recognized the
self-determination of Eritrea places them in a favorable historical position.
Some Ethiopian elite could hate the EPRDF, but it is clear that they have
achieved so much towards empowering the marginalized people; they deserve
credit on this regard. And they have done it softly, awakening the elite by
singing lullabies and the smell of roasting coffee. If the marginalized did
the awakening themselves, it would have been very different.
Dawit
mentions that “The Nile, the Red Sea (Eritrea) and Somalia (the Ogaden)”
are paramount strategic importance for the well being of Ethiopia. Leaving
aside the elite’s obsession of portraying the Red Sea as some cave where
Cyclopes and Pirates hide to jump at Ethiopia anytime it blinks, I am baffled
by the fact that the rights of Eritreans, Ogadenis and Afars are always
subservient to the proponents of Greater Ethiopia. They think that all those
people in the peripheries of power are there to serve the Abyssinian elite
that never questions its legitimacy to perpetually
control others! They take that as given, as a god-given right!
For
an Ethiopian, whose history and guiding principles is based on mythologies
and fables to state that “Eritreans have been exposed to many kinds of
propaganda and external interests,” is incomprehensible. But the land of
the Gold & Wax has this: y’ras
simmwala now k’lela whdetu Unlike
Dawit’s description, “Eritrea is Mehal Ager” and “the place where
Ethiopiawinet began” I have many relatives whose ancestors fled to
Eritrea escaping from Ethiopiawiniet. But Dawit, and the rest of the elite,
need to zoom out of their comfort zone and see beyond their ethnicity,
religion and region. This would be elaborated in my upcoming book, God
willing, soon—I am following Dawit’s advice: “Our genuine historians had
to dig a lot to bring the truth out and popularize it.” I don’t need to
be a genuine historian, I try to be a genuine
storyteller.
The
Phobias The
elite should know that people will someday spring out of their slumber and
fight for what is theirs. No one should be taken for granted, all sane people
know that no one would take oppressions and sidelining with no reaction
indefinitely. Any reasonable person would recognize that geopolitical
situations have changed and the status quo is no more guaranteed.
Technological advancements have come a long way, and thankfully, they are
accessible, not monopolized by the elite. One can either embrace democracy in
its genuine, and honest form, or chose to live in endless seasons of
pillaging and violence—and for a country that knew nothing but “elect-of-god”
kings and imitation Stalins, Ethiopia is not doing bad.
If I
were an Ethiopian, I would take it easy and be thankful I have reached this
far. I would stop the tactics of the ancient regime and try to improve the
playing ground by using indigenous tools, education, work
for justice and equality and engage directly in the country. I have so much
respect for those who make their points and pursue ideal democracy and
mobilize their people towards peaceful struggle inside the country, I have
zero respect for those who totally depend on political NGOs from world
capitals. I would not allow my country to be run by whoever has the
deepest pocket.
History
by Commission An
often-repeated obsession with belittling the Eritrean struggle comes straight
from the Eritrean ruling regime’s discrediting manuals: “I was there as troop
commander when the first conflict started between the government troops and
the rebel forces (then they were just bandits) because they did not have any
political agenda.” This
is typical of an elite that is so arrogant it thinks
that it owns all the tools of knowledge, others are dummies. No one else is
able to plan as they plan; no one else is as smart as they are. Dawit’s club
of elite (including Isaias) lacks basic humility in acknowledging what is
done by their opponents and keep making such outrageous declarations.
Bandits? That doesn’t even warrant a response but the more serious claim
does. Though
they would have been considered brilliant and progressive if they waved a
communist manifesto—which is the only thing Dawit’s Derg regime had (and
imported, at that), Awate and his brave colleagues had an agenda, a concise
political agenda at that. It can be summed up in one sentence: it was to
get Dawit and his troops out of Eritrea. Dawit himself has confirmed, “many
[Eritreans] joined the rebels …because they …were denied their right to live
without fear of being persecuted, arrested and tortured and executed.”
What agenda is needed when the reason is clearly identified? Why join Ethiopia
when all that comes from it is more death and oppression, a long history of
persecution, aggression and pillaging starting from the time of the likes of
Degiat Wube? Eritreans joined the rebels because they wanted nothing to have
to do with Ethiopia. They wanted to have a fence they can close when they go
to bed at night. They wanted any dealing with Ethiopia to be in broad
daylight, when everyone is wide-awake, when each neighbor opens his door
willingly without coercion.
But
leaving tit-for-tar aside, for those who wish to be educated, though it is
coming over half a century later, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was
started by parliamentarians, lawyers, university students and labor
unionists. They knew they did not fit in the tight club of the Ethiopian
elite of the time, they were its anti-thesis. They were so progressive that
they rejected an archaic feudal regime and had the courage to pave the way
for its eradication. Ethiopians should be grateful to those people; they
hastened the political transformation of Ethiopia. If not for that, today,
there would have been another feudal Janhoi ruling over the millions of
landless peasants. Yes, the power structure of ancient Ethiopia was
destroyed. Yes, there are many who are fond of that era and remember it with
nostalgia. But if that was good or bad depends on your perspective—of course,
those who suffered, “the loss of power and influence” didn’t like it
just like Dawit. I was
Also There, Shaleqa Dawit
What is
amazing is that Dawit was everywhere, even in places he imagined he was. He
claims, “I was there when [Awate] was captured and killed.” All right,
I was there in Meqdela when Tedros swallowed a bullet from his pistol. I
shook General Napier’s hands. Too ancient a history? I have lived that age, in
my imagination—why not if Dawit can imagine witnessing Awate’s capture and
death, I was in Meqdela. Prove me wrong! But Dawit’s claim that Awate was
captured and killed (didn’t say if he was summarily executed!) is a novel
claim—there is no single document, or even a claim, that Awate was killed or
captured. I have never seen or heard such a claim even from official
Ethiopian sources. I challenge Dawit to prove this, substantial proof, not
the ‘I was there’ type. Awate died of a sudden illness and was buried by his
friends, the band of courageous men Dawit calls bandits.
Dawit
is a career soldier, a politician and a leader. To make it worse, he has a
fourth component, he is an intellectual. Those four in one container
are deadly combination.
Eritrean
liberation fighters had all the incentive to keep the death of Awate a secret
so as not to demoralize the combatants; conversely, Ethiopia then had every
incentive to publicize his death, for the same reason: to demoralize the
enemy. If Dawit’s troops laid their hands on Awate’s body as he claims, they
would have displayed it in the marketplace just like they did with the other
bodies: for God’s sake, as a child, like everyone else in town, I was
forcefully herded by Ethiopian soldiers to watch the gruesome sights of
mutilated corpses the Tor Serawit hanged in the marketplace. They wanted to
show their trophies whenever they had a good day and laid their hands on
killed ELF combatants—this is from a nation that went through the Italian
fascist rule that did the same after the attempt on Graziani’s life in Addis
Ababa and its surrounding; a nation of a corrupt king who solicited foreign
powers to bombard Ethiopian villages in Tigray, chemical bombs. If I were
Dawit, or anyone who thinks like him, I would reread my country’s history
again, this time, critically and honestly.
Dawit
further claims: “I was also there when in September 1956 (Eth. Cal.) our
troops suffered their first causality at a place called Haikota, close to
Agordat. The ELF took out peaceful soldiers on leave from a public bus and
executed them.” I am hardly pressed to disbelieve this claim, if Dawit
was there, he must have been the only Tor Serawit in Haikota. At that time,
Haikota was manned by Eritrean police—Tor Serawit had not been stationed there
yet though they passed through there a year earlier to pursue Awate who gave
them a battle at Togoruba where the man with the ragtag group of “Bandits”
came out victorious.
The
date corresponds to 1964 European calendar and the people who executed that
operation could still be alive. The Haikota operation is considered one of
the first ever-daring operations the nascent ELF executed. The claim that the
ELF killed peaceful soldiers from a public bus and executed them is either a
dishonest recounting or an intended clever under the belt hit, I am not sure
which. It didn’t happen.
That
story is recounted by all veterans with so much pride and passion. Here
is what really happened: The bus was stopped on its way to Haikota, the
combatants in civilian clothes ordered the passengers to disembark. Then they
boarded the bus and entered Haikota singing and clapping (traditionally,
people on a trip to bring a bride from a different place traveled that way).
They surprised the policemen in the Haikota station. They were not prepared
for such a surprise; it could be because their trainers told them Awate and
his group is a bunch of simple BANDITS. But the “bandits” stripped the
station of all its arms and stores.
In
any event, EVEN if what Dawit recounts is true (and it is not), where do
these two acts fall on the morality scale: executing “peaceful soldiers” who
were vacationing from their one task, to kill you OR burning alive women, the elderly and children?
A
Peace Intended to Serve War What Dawit
is calling for is the rebirth of the Unionist Party and a new coalition of,
again, of Abyssinians, to fight another targeted Abyssinians, Weyane. Haven’t
we had enough of this reckless politics? Wouldn’t this be Red Tears Part 2? The
sad thing is that Dawit is calling for another cycle of confrontation though
he remembers that his friends (and many he doesn’t know), “died with a
smile on their face: because the cause was the flag and the unity of Ethiopia.” And sadly enough,
from another perspective, many Eritrean fighters died with a smile on their
face: because they wanted to rid Eritrea of the Ethiopian troops and flag
that was imposed on them. Now let’s go to war not for a noble cause, but to
beat up the Weyane!
For
most of history, Ethiopian ruling power has been under the control of the
three-headed hydra: Amhara, Eritrean Highlands, and Tigrai. The body of the
hydra represented Abyssinia. The competition among the three heads has been a
typical alpha male confrontation: two heads have to suffer for the third to
walk away and mount the only female. You will discover that this selfish and
meaningless competition has burned centuries of the country’s history.
Centuries were wasted on infighting, destroying and never building. All the
violence and destruction is hatched, led and executed by one of the three
heads of the hydra; other people in the area had to suffer the consequences
of calamities not of their making. Dawit’s audience are not being encouraged
to befriend Isaias in order to promote peaceful transition or fair
competition; Isaias knows only the language of the gun and they seem to have
embraced that. Oh Abyssinian elite, have mercy!
I
would like to volunteer an observation: one who resorts to Isaias for a
solution has nothing to do with democracy! The dream of peaceful coexistence
cannot be achieved with Isaias holding the compass; he can only devise
diabolical plans to take the two nations into a Somalia situation, then we
would envy Somalis and wish we were in their state. Dawit has called on
Ethiopians “to work very closely with our Eritrean brothers and sisters to
get rid of Woyanne.” He has betted on Isaias and his minority regime and
we all know that this is another bloody adventure being hatched. For me, the
day you side with Isaias, you lose my respect.
Dawit
confirms, “Assab is negotiable. Badme is negotiable.” If I was
negotiating on Badme, I would suggest we give it to the Delai Lama and
legislate that every Abyssinian spends three months there to be deprogrammed,
cut the nerves that attract the smell of blood to his nose. Then cut the
wires that ignite fire and force everyone to meditate until the devil that
encourages them to wage wars is ejected. Everyone would go hungry until they
forget war cries that go, Geday, Geday. It is just not ‘cool’ as the young
would say. One cannot rap with pride screaming that he is a killer like a
downtown gangster. As far as Assab is concerned, I would station Isaias in
one of those one-meter square Gurage shops to learn how to do honest and
smart business. One cannot open a grocery shop in Arat Kilo and boycott the
resident of the neighborhood. Assab has been idle for ten years thanks to
Isaias—boycotting 80 million people is not smart at all, in fact, it is the dumbest
thing one can do.
New,
More Accommodating Bridges In
conclusion, less I be misunderstood as someone who is anti-cooperation, I
would like to state that I have no phobia of any kind. What I wrote above
should be considered my attempt to offer a jolt, send people to an
uncomfortable zone that they avoid, to make the elite understand how they are
perceived and how arrogant and insensitive and irresponsible their political
designs are. The region has suffered enough and people with abilities should
build practical modern bridges instead of reviving bridges that we crossed
and found to be weak and useless. We should call for the building of two,
three, four and more bridges that would carry us all, not only the elite who
have been the cause of our miseries for centuries. Dawit is a decent person,
no doubt, but his message just scratches raw nerves. I wish he would revise
his posture and stop igniting fires that he is sure would not burn him.
Geopolitics has changed and the situation is more volatile than we care to
admit. We should not pretend to promote democracy and at the same time
practice what is contrary to democracy. We should not call on others to be
closer to us yet we are not ready to shed our chauvinistic and paternalist
posture. Respect
is the way to any future cooperation between the region’s countries. To an
Eritrean (all Eritrea and not the elite’s Eritrea) cooperation is sought
equally with all the countries of the region. It is good that Dawit has come
to terms with Eritrea’s independence; but belittling the Eritrean struggle
and repeating the old Ethiopian rhetoric, agitation and actions of the
forties is a call to repeat the violent cycle that resulted the first time
around. Finally,
I beg (it is only asking a favor) the Ethiopian elite to stop saying that the
TPLF, “gave away [Eritrean] independence in a silver platter.” Not
denying the positive role the TPLF played, it would be an insult to ignore
the sacrifices and the courage with which Eritreans fought to gain
liberation; the fact that it is not complete does not change that. 1 Major Dawit, a graduate of the Harar Military Academy
during the Haile Sellassie era. He carries a Law degree from Addis Ababa
University and Columbia University in the United States. Major Dawit was a
military trainer and operations officer in Eritrea. In the eighties, he was
the supreme representative of the Derg and Workers Party of Ethiopia (ye
etipia serategnotch mahber (ESEPA). He was also a Deputy Foreign Minister and
the Commissioner of Relief and Rehabilitation of Ethiopia. |
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Last Updated ( Jul 03, 2009 ) |
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